the Diary of Mary Plodzt
by Rodlox
Summary: Chapter One... A look into the diary, and the mind, of Mary Plodzt, a 4400 leader not as well known as was Jordan Collier. Set from shortly after the end of Quarantine to shortly after 'Lockdown'. Chapter two... Shawn met Mary twice & attended her funer
1. Chapter 1

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**Title:the Diary of Mary Plodzt.**

**Author:Rodlox.**

**Dedication:Many thanks to all my supporters and inspirations in this...but most of all, to my favorite beta-readers Fanwoman, Purpleyin, and Fififolle.**

**Author's notes:I always doubted that Jordan would be the _only_ leader of 4400s, the only one able to rally 4400s together, to bring them into communities (ecumenica). Meet Mary Plodzt, another 4400 who managed the same trick.**

**Summary:The diary of Mary Plodzt after she is returned to the world...**

**----**

**21st September 2004:**

They have released us from quarantine.

**-----**

**25th September 2004:**

Men and women were taken. Men and women were returned. Not enough to be sustainable. Too many to be an accident. God does nothing by accident. If only men were returnees, or only women were returnees, then we might think we were meant to spread our genes into the broader population. But we are not simply all men or all women, instead we are 2,200 men and 2,200 women. Timing, I suspect, will be the key -- when and how to do

To do what? I am certain He has a reason. There is nothing done that does not have a reason, even if we cannot yet understand it. He has given us minds so that we might understand His works, and better know Him. Therefore there is a way for us to come to know what His plan is in regards to we 4400s. We have simply to labor towards that understanding.

Why are we here? What are we here? I learned in quarantine that there is no religion which enjoys numerical superiority as we returnees are counted -- every faith has the same number of practitioners who were taken and returned. Only the agnostics are in a minority amongst us. Nothing which He does is by accident. Much which He does can be understood by those who learn from all that which He does.

He knows His reasons. To _guess_ feels base, wrong. If the answer can be learned, it should be. I aim to find out.

What is my role in all of this? I was selected for a reason. All things occur for a reason. I was made a returnee. I am not a refugee, not a businessman, not a doctor not artisan. I have no trade by which I can draw a profit. I confess that I have only dabbled in professions, taking naught but the first few steps of many careers. Is this why I was selected? Chosen because I am educated to no aim? I know this and that, but am nowhere near a degree or an equivlancy.

I am no Moses to lead us into a new land, a new society, a new beginning. I am no Jacob, to bring forth a nation from my loins. I am Mary Plodzt, a shephard because others rely upon me. One day, perhaps He will show me who He means to lead His modern people. In the meanwhile, our community, our ecumenica will hold together. I should not fear an end to anything, but I cannot help but worry that a collapse of our ecumenica will be the end of all of we 4400s.

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**9th March 2005:**

There will come hard times for us all, and there will come moments when we are truly tested. None of us shall pass through this life untouched, just as not one of us should hope to be untouched and uninfluenced by their life and the lives around them. Each one of we 4400 can expect to face difficulty and hard decisions.

Some of us are soldiers, some are leaders and teachers, some are herbalists. At any point in time, any of us may change from one profession to another, as best our natures allow us to change. But we shall all indeed change, at least once.

And we must be prepared to dedicate ourselves. As individuals, we have dedicated ourselves to our friends, to the ecumenicas that we have formed. Both individually and collectively, we must prepare to dedicate ourselves to our collective safety and collective security, we must be willing to serve as the guards of our people. For if danger passes us, we are doomed.

**-----**

**30th April 2005:**

Our ecumenica continues to grow apace, growing from the handful of released returnees who came out of quarantine together. Nowhere near the 4,400 which is our total number, our ecumenica has grown beyond the eight who, lost and seeking, began to keep the company of one another. And our numbers shall surely continue to grow, until our ecumenica includes as members all of we returnees.

Jordan Collier will be a problem. He has refused to join our ecumenica and is building an ecumenica of his own. They are our own kind, fellow returnees. They are misguided, and should be allowed to join us in their own time. Tempted as we may be, we should not raise our arms against other ecumenicas. Not even raise our voice against them. Thus we must trust that Collier will overcome his pride and will join our ecumenica with those who follow him. Collier is as I am -- a returnee, nothing more. We have every right to be shepards, none to be leaders. Returnees are a community; not a cult. We are an ecumenica yearning to reunify.

But he has delivered a severe blow to our collective identity nonetheless. However much I would like to ignore the message he has revealed, I have come to know him well enough to know that he would gain nothing from lying, not on this point certainly. The future is the hand behind the abduction and return of every one of we 4400. Humans in a distant time.

_And so it is that the answer has come: as I held my hand motionless as I thought, my pen dripped thrice, a little inkblot forming in the shadow of my hand. Surely...yes,_ surely mankind even in the future is only the hand of God. Those people may have thought they were doing it of their own recognizance, perhaps even believed it fervently, but were truly the instruments of Divine Will. Nothing shall interfere with His plan for mankind, even if He choses to use other times as pawns toward His greater Intent.

Yes.

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AUGUST SECOND

MARY PLODZT, ENEMY OF JORDAN

COLLIER, IS NOW DEAD

BY MY HAND.

TRULY,

T.J.Kim

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	2. Chapter 2

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**Title:Remembering Mary.**

**Author:Rodlox.**

**Summary:Shawn met Mary twice, and then attended her funeral.**

**Dedication:Many thanks to all my supporters and inspirations in this...but most of all, to my favorite beta-readers Fanwoman, Purpleyin, and Fififolle.**

**Author's notes:And this is the reason why Shawn was so horrified when Kemal Skouras (in the _Magna Graecia _series) said that Shawn would marry Mary. Note, this is an AU: in the Magna Graecia series, Mary is not dead.**

**_"weren't in time"_ refers to the subjective-lengthed period between abduction & return.**

**----**

**July 7th:**

**4400 CENTER:**

"I will tell you what I told your predecessor in this very office," said Mary Plodzt, "And that is 'no.'"

Shawn sighed. The woman was more frustrating than infuriating, which was probably a good thing, otherwise she'd have been dead by now. _Not sure by whose hand, but dead all the same. _"I'm just offering. You know, the hand of friendship."

"Circumstance bound us in that lil' orb, young man." _You're not quite ten years older than I am_, Shawn thought to himself, _not counting the years you weren't in time. "_Yet you and Collier have failed to reach the same conclusions from it as I and those who accompany me have."

"We're all different, absolutely," Shawn agreed, feeling like they were getting somewhere. Finally. "And that's probably why we were all taken."

"Four thousand and four hundred of us," Mary said. "On that point, we agree. On the point of our being a chosen people, I agreed with your predecessor."

"Then why'd you keep turning down his offers of assistance?" Shawn asked. Both before and after what Jordan called his personal judgement, aka his initial run-in with Isabelle, he'd tried to collaborate with Plodzt and the returnees who'd flocked to her banner.

"Because he confused spirituality with the temporal realm." She was unbendingly insistent on the past tense where Jordan was concerned, even this soon after the death. "We returnees are, indeed, the chosen among the living, but our uniqueness cannot be spread to those who were not chosen as we ourselves were -- that is a spiritual matter."

"You don't want to work with other returnees," Shawn asked, "because one of Jordan's tenets was that everybody's special?"

"It was more than his own, it became a tenet of this Center. No amount of labor will bind together the wheat and the chaff." Recalling the Biblical saying _He shall come to separate the wheat from the chaff_Shawn had a pretty good feeling who she felt were the chaff. "It is as simple as that."

"Miss. Plodzt, you do realize, don't you, that the future depends on _all_ of us, returnee or not, putting our differences aside and working together."

"Mr. Collier did not want 'working together;' he demanded integration. While that is wise for the races, it is unwise for the returnees."

_Well, at least she's not a racist. _"And why's that?"

"You call yourself his successor, and I can see the resemblance of your mind to his. But neither of you sees that our survival hinges upon what policies we enact to ensure our survival to save the future."

"'Our survival'? Something tells me you're not talking about all of mankind." She was from the 70s, from a rural area in the US if her dress and bonnet were any clue, so she wasn't about to tell him something politically-correct.

"Our world has grown since I was a girl. There are now six billion of all mankind, Mr. Farrell. There are four-point-four thousand of our people within those six billion. If our uniqueness is to preserve the planet from ruin, we must ourselves not fade away in a generation or two."

"Mind being a little more specific?" Shawn asked, hoping his gut feeling was wrong.

A short nod. "Certainly. If you wish to preserve a desirable trait in horses or fish, you proceede with care and forethought, careful not to lose the trait by hurling that horse into a wild herd. Mendel proved that traits can be passed on, with Darwin clarifying that traits can be lost...while Newton and Einstein prove that all things impact all other things."

_Bigoted as she is,_ Shawn thought to himself, _she's kinda got a point_; however much he was loathe to admit it. "So, what, tell every 4400 not to marry non-4400s?" _For some, like Richard and Lily, that wouldn't be a problem; but such a policy would undoubtedly alienate other Returnees._

"I wonder if you would forbid 4400s to marry their fellow 4400s if marriage was their wish. Marriage is not my concern, nor is it my aim in this matter. If you saw clearly, you would understand that. Like myself, you are the focus of a great many of our people, men and women who look to you for guidance."

"So...for every 4400 half-blood, a returnee has to have a full-blooded 4400 baby, too?" Shawn asked, hoping the woman choked on the Harry Potter reference. _Mugbloods rule._

No such luck: it went right over her white-bonnetted head. "If that is how you envision our people surviving, then so be it." _Kinda figures she'd miss the Potter reference...she predates it. _She considered him, and at last came to a decision. "As bizarre a proposal as that was, it does tell me that perhaps you are not as hidebound as your predecessor had been." _So she didn't like the comment I made either? "_For that reason, on the chance of a possibility, I will consider cooperation between our organizations, Mr. Farrell, but there is a prerequisite to my binding agreement," one finger scratching under the dark red ribbon under her jaw that kept her bonnet low.

I kinda figured as much. "And what would that be?" asking as nicely as he could.

"It has come to my attention that, while a few of our fellows have done acts deserving of incarceration, there are others who are presently being held captive without recourse to any aids. Right this wrong, for the region at the least, and I shall be in your debt until our agreement is signed."

"Sounds fair."

"Then it must be so." She stood up to leave. "I will come again in a weeks time, and I trust you will have something to show, however small a movement of the mountain."

_'The mountain labored, and brought forth a mouse.'_ Nodding, "If any mice show up, you'll be the first to know." He was glad she was finally leaving, and hoped for a very slow week.

**--**

**JULY 15th:**

"Nice of you to meet me here," Shawn said as he walked into the outdoor garden here at the Center.

"I come because it has been a week. Have you anything, furry or otherwise?"

"I got you an appointment with some friends of mine inside NTAC. Tell them some of what you've told me," and if you can't figure out what to leave out, then that's your problem; "and they'll let you see the folks they're holding in the hospital."

"No doubt all are in the 'hospital'."

Shawn shrugged. "That, they didn't tell me." Looking down, "You okay?"

Raising the hand Shawn was looking at, "It is nothing," Plodzt said even as Shawn looked at it, "it is only a small cut, a paper cut incurred yesterday as I filed forms."

"Well let me try something," Shawn said, now holding her fingers with one hand, trying to ignore her shudder. He poured his healing onto her hand and - He himself winced at the stinging sensation that flooded his holding hand. After a minute, he could stand no more, and he let go. That's never happened before; that thought ran through his mind, a refrain to silence his mouth even as he saw the impossible. It was her hand, specifically -

Her finger was no different. "Never assume," Mary told him, "that you are any better than your equals."_ Humility, dear boy, _Mary thought to herself, _learn and practice humility._

**--**

**AUGUST 5th:**

_We've got the cemetary to ourselves,_ Shawn thought to himself as he stood in attendance at Mary Plodzt's funeral. The Garrittys were in attendance, as was Uncle Tommy and agents Skouris and Pacella. More than them, though, were all the people from both the Center and Mary's ecumenica.

Instead of a traditional service, everyone had the opportunity to stand at the head of the grave and say a little something. A number of people thus far had talked about how Mary had given them a roof over their heads while they sorted out their lives. Others told how Mary had given them something to do, a reason to keep going, when the world had changed without them. And then it was Shawn's turn... Trying not to look at the casket that'd been lowered already -- one of the requests in her Will, he understood it to be -- Shawn looked groundwards in respect. "I'll admit I didn't always see eye to eye with Mary," he said. "She was one of those people who believed passionately in what she was doing, in what she had to do."_ Just like Jordan._ "Mary never apologized for her beliefs, and even when you disagreed with her, you still respected her conviction."

With nods all around, Shawn took a step back. He was the last in line to say anything about her, so a quiet settled over the scene, a minute of silence before her casket was covered with dirt.

"Mary Plodzt's greatest wish," a new voice said, breaking the silence around the grave, "was that all 4400s come together. I'd say this is a good start." Shawn recognized the voice: _Jordan?_

_**----**_

**_The End_**.


End file.
